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On Nov. 7, little more than a week after Hurricane Sandy battered New York, a filmmaker, Kate Balandina, navigated the dark hallways and staircases of 7-11 Seagirt Avenue, four hulking towers with more than 900 apartments along the beach in Far Rockaway, Queens.

Times Topic: Hurricanes and Tropical Storms (Hurricane Sandy)Connect with NYTMetro

Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesEMPTIED HOME Modeste and Mark Elliott inside Apartment 13C, the home of their grandfather, Thomas S. Anderson.

THE MAN IN APARTMENT 13C Mr. Anderson, a veteran of World War II, watched or attended almost every Mets game.Enlarge This Image

Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesHe died at 89.Enlarge This Image

Michael Appleton for The New York TimesON DUTY Danny Sanchez, an assistant building superintendent at the Sand Castle complex, used a master key to enter Mr. Anderson’s apartment 14 days after Hurricane Sandy hit. He found Mr. Anderson’s body.Enlarge This Image

Kate BalandinaKate Balandina, left, made a video about conditions at the Sandy Castle that drew viewers from as far away as Britain.Enlarge This Image

Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesFORCED OUT Lavar Little, a Sand Castle resident paralyzed by a car accident, ran out of water and developed a bedsore after the storm.Readers’ CommentsReaders shared their thoughts on this article.Read All Comments (108) »The action she captured played out by flashlight beam, illuminating elderly men and women swaddled in coats, robes, sweaters, hats and scarves in their apartments. “It’s cold, so cold,” one gray-haired man said in Russian, sounding short of breath. The privately owned high rise had been without heat, water or working elevators since the evening of the storm.

In the lobby, Rodney Duff, a burly resident in a black sweatshirt, made a grim prediction. “Two hundred seniors that can’t move up and down these stairs,” Mr. Duff said. “One of them is going to die in this building tonight.”

Those scenes inside the complex, known as the Sand Castle, soon appeared in a disturbing five-minute video on YouTube, telling what has become a familiar story in the storm’s aftermath. Like thousands of other vulnerable city residents, the tenants endured hunger, cold and fear for days, deprived of assistance and, in some cases, vital medicines. Almost everyone — the residents, their families, the building owners, city officials and aid workers — was poorly prepared for the magnitude of need caused by power failures that persisted long after the hurricane had passed.

But the video produced by Ms. Balandina, who was volunteering aid and pulled out her camera because she was horrified at what she was seeing, made this story all its own. After YouTube viewers witnessed the desperation at the Far Rockaway complex, some sprang into action. Aid convoys rumbled in from out of state. People as far away as Britain called City Hall, pleading that officials help the Sand Castle. Ambulances were summoned there by residents of Pennsylvania.

Facebook reports and blog posts, some by people who had not visited the buildings, even circulated accounts of multiple bodies being removed from the complex when the power was out. Those reports were not borne out by the police, medical examiner and health department records, but they contributed to the making of a myth, a social-media tale that seemed believable amid so much misery.

After the lights came on nearly two weeks after the storm, Danny Sanchez, an assistant superintendent, used a master key to enter Apartment C on the 13th floor of Building B, where no one had answered the door on repeated visits. There, he found Thomas S. Anderson, 89, who had lived alone, face up on the floor beside his bed....